Motorola

Motorola has taken it upon itself to give us the future the movie Her promised us – or at least one key ingredient in the future. The new Moto Hint is a single wireless earbud that comes in a variety of designs, and while it isn’t quite as invisible as the headset showcased in Her, it is designed to give its wearer the ability to quickly and easily ask their phones questions.
The… Read More

The Moto 360 has been unveiled previously, and is arguably the most anticipated Android Wear smartwatch, owing partly to its attractive round face. The wearable is finally landing, complete with heart rate monitor, in both black and gray metal finishes, with retail availability kicking off today at noon EST from Motorola.com, Best Buy and Google Play for $249.99.
Two new metal band options will… Read More

Motorola has sent around an invite for revelations of the new Moto 360, along with indications that it will also have news about Moto X and G smartphones, and possibly accessories including a headset at an event on September 4. The invite uses the classic paper fortune teller children’s game as the means to preview what’s going to be up for discussion, with graphics for each of… Read More

Android Wear is already out in the wild, on peoples’ wrists and theoretically in their hearts, but the Moto 360, the round-faced smartwatch that has caught the eye of many a fashion-conscious consumer, is supposed to be coming something this month, and a new leak suggests it’s just about ready for prime time.
The images come from Italian blogger Luca Viscardi (via AndroidWorld.it)… Read More

I’d think this was just a clever April Fools joke, if it wasn’t the middle of July.
Motorola and VivaLnk have made a temporary tattoo that can unlock a smartphone, no PIN required. Slap it on your skin, hold your phone up to it, and bam — phone unlocked.
Who needs gestural passwords or face recognition when you can unlock your phone like a time traveling space wizard? Read More

The Motorola G is a helluva a deal, and it just got better. The budget phone is now available in the U.S. with 4G for just $219. Unlocked and not tied to a carrier contract. And that’s awesome. You should buy five. Read More

Part of the sales pitch for Motorola Mobility’s (then Google-owned) Moto X smartphone was that it was partly U.S.-made; an assembly plant to put together the Moto X opened in Fort Worth, Texas in May 2013. That plant will close by the end of this year, Motorola confirms to TechCrunch, however, as sales of the smartphone and operational costs have made continuing operations there… Read More

Budget Androids still get a bad rap but Motorola is on a mission to change that, with the launch last year of the Moto G. Today it’s stepping on the gas at the low end — outing an even cheaper follow up to the well-reviewed sub-$200 Moto G, called the Moto E, and a beefier sequel to the Moto G which includes 4G. Read More

Zebra Technologies, a manufacturer of barcode, receipt, kiosk and RFID printers and supplies announced today that they were buying Motorola Solutions’ handheld unit for $3.45B.
Philip Gerskovich, Senior Vice President for New Growth Platforms at Zebra, explained to me in a phone interview that the two companies have been working together for years. Zebra has printed the bar codes… Read More

Turns out the ‘G’ in Moto G stands for ‘Go!’. Motorola’s well-reviewed sub-$200 Android handset has given Motorola an unexpected boost in the U.K. — a market where the brand had gone into near-total stasis. Read More

Motorola hosted a live Hangout with Jim Wicks, the lead designer of the Moto 360 Android Wear-based smartwatch, and the discussion started with the inspiration for the product and moved to its specifics. Motorola wasn’t yet sharing that much about specs and details for the hardware, but the smartwatch actually works as Wicks used it on camera, proving this isn’t just an… Read More

Motorola is an early partner for Google’s new Android Wear smartwatch SDK, and that’s not surprising given that the company was Google owned until Lenovo began the procedure of buying it in January. The new Moto 360 has a round face, which is one of two options for Wear devices (square is the other) and features the “Ok Google” voice control highlighted by Google for… Read More

Motorola held a decided low-key press conference today at Mobile World Congress. It was a snoozer. But! But Rick Osterloh, Motorola SVP, confirmed that the brand is still working on smartwatch development and there is another one on the way.
Motorola was in fact one of the first firms to attempt a smartwatch. Way back in the balmy days of 2011, Motorola released the Motoactiv GPS and… Read More

[Updated: As Re/code notes, Google does not yet own Lenovo shares. Instead, the regulatory filing shows the number of shares Google might own after its agreement with Lenovo to purchase Motorola goes through.]
Google paid $750 million for a 5.94% stake in Lenovo Group on Jan. 30, according to a disclosure on the Hong Kong stock exchange. The purchase was made on the same day after Google… Read More

It’s a brave new dawn for the TechCrunch Droidcast as I take over hosting duties from Chris Velazco… who returns temporarily from the distant lands of Engadget to share his insights on Google’s sale of Motorola to Lenovo, the Nexus program at Google and what’s next for hardware there, and the new, slightly improved Ouya Android console.
Remember that you can now also… Read More

Looking for a way to get through Friday? Here you go.
Facebook launched a news reader app called Paper. (Teens will love it.) And Google sold Motorola to Lenovo for $3 billion, which made earnings week interesting. And, in the land of startups, we explore a new Carbon 3D Printer and a Keurig Coffee machine. So you can print yourself a cup-holder, which will store your fresh cup of coffee, as… Read More

Lenovo’s aspirations for an established mobile handset company goes back a few years. According to a report published by the WSJ, Lenovo competed with Google for Motorola Mobility in 2011. Then just last October Lenovo submitted an offer for BlackBerry. That deal also fell through.
However, Lenovo’s search ended last Thanksgiving when Google Chairman Eric Schmidt called Yang… Read More

Google today sold Motorola to Lenovo for $2.91 billion. While many speculated that Google would release phones after it bought Motorola in 2011, it didn’t happen — Motorola remained a partner like other Android OEMs. Recently, Google acquired Nest, and TechCrunch has learned that Google has big plans for the team behind the connected device company.
Google will keep the Nest… Read More

Google just took to the wires and announced the sale of Motorola Mobility to Lenovo for $2.91 billion. TechCrunch obtained the following internal Google memo that outlines the reason for the sale and plan going forward.
Towards the end of the memo, Larry Page thanks the Motorola team and states the obvious that he is confident that Lenovo can drive the Motorola brand forward.
More as we… Read More